UPDATE: American Airlines To Cut 700 Maintenance Jobs
28 Octubre 2009 - 11:33AM
Noticias Dow Jones
American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp. (AMR), in the next year
will close or downsize some U.S. aircraft maintenance facilities,
cutting up to 700 jobs, or about 5% of its maintenance staff of
12,700, as the size of its fleet gets smaller, and other U.S.
airlines move maintenance work offshore.
In a letter to employees, Carmine Romano, the Ft. Worth, Texas,
airline's senior vice president of maintenance and engineering,
said American will close its Kansas City facility next September
and will reduce work in San Francisco and St. Louis. The jobs
include management and union positions, where employees are
represented by the Transport Workers Union of America. Several
smaller facilities for overnight maintenance also will be
closed.
In a statement, the union said downsizing came as a result of
economic recession and "cutthroat domestic and international
competition." But, said John Conley, director of the TWU Air
Transport Division, "We're still hopeful that, before the Kansas
City facility closes late next year, that industry conditions will
improve and allow many of our members to find work elsewhere in the
company."
Unlike most U.S. competitors, American Airlines doesn't
outsource scheduled aircraft maintenance, and in recent years has
brought work in-house from other carriers. But, across the
industry, the trend has been to schedule routine maintenance
offshore, in countries such as El Salvador, where costs are lower.
Spokesman Tim Wagner said American Airlines tried for 10 months to
get work from other airlines to keep the Kansas City maintenance
facility running, but "our bids weren't competitive with offshore
facilities, because our labor costs are higher," he said.
At American's primary maintenance facility in Tulsa, Okla., the
company performs nearly all the regular maintenance needed on its
own aircraft, and works on planes for "a number of other carriers,"
Wagner said. American sends out about 9% to 10% of maintenance to
the original manufacturer for specialty work, such as on cockpit
avionics.
In his letter to employees, Romano noted that, as the U.S.
airline industry downsized capacity, the AMR fleet has shrunk from
a high of 900 aircraft to about 600 currently. As well, older
aircraft that required more maintenance have been replaced by newer
planes.
American Airlines aims to "move toward a more flexible,
cost-efficient operation that improves flow and takes into account
the long-term impact of the recession on travel..." as well as
changes American is making to its own route network, Romano told
employees.
Meanwhile, U.S. legislators have raised questions about overseas
maintenance contracts at some U.S. airlines. The loss of U.S. jobs
is one concern, but, some lawmakers say, so is aircraft safety,
since the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't oversee foreign
locations with the same scrutiny as domestic facilities.
-By Ann Keeton, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4120;
ann.keeton@dowjones.com